Now one plus one equals two, that happens every day
That is not magic
That's the grind
That's when you get up, one. Go to work, one. Go to bed, two.
Two, geniuses, two.
But when one plus one equals three, that's when your life changes
And you see everything new
And these are days when you are visited by visions,
when the world around you brings down the spirit
and you feel blessed to be alive.
It is the essential equation of love.
There is no love without one plus one equaling three.
It's the essential equation of art.
It's the essential equation of rock 'n' roll.
It's the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible.
It's the reason Louie Louie will never be fully comprehensible.
And it's the reason true rock 'n' roll
And true rock 'n' roll bands, will never die
Teardrops on the city
Bad Scooter searching for his groove
Whole world walking pretty and you can't find the room to move
Everybody better move over, that's all
I'm running on the bad side
With my back to the wall
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
I'm stranded in the jungle tryna take in all the heat they're giving
Yeah, the night is dark but the sidewalk's bright and lined with the light of the living
From a tenement window a transistor blasts
Turn around the corner things got real quiet real fast
I walked into a Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
And I'm all alone, I'm all alone
And I can't go home
I can't find my way back home now
Now Gary, Danny, Little Steven, Mighty Max, Professor Roy, Nils Lofgren, Patty Scialfa, that is my one plus one equals three.
Excellent, grasshopper!
But nobody captured my audience's imagination or their hearts like Clarence.
Clarence was, Clarence was a figure out of a rock 'n' roll storybook,
And together, we told a story that was bigger than any of the ones I had written in my songs.
It was a story where not only does Scooter and the Big Man bust the city in half
But we remade the city.
We remade the city shaping into the kind of place where
Our friendship and our love for one another
Wouldn't have been such an exceptional thing.
First night I saw Clarence he came walking out of the shadows towards the band stand, nodded to me, got up, stood to my right, for the very first time.
He picked up his saxophone,
And when he played
when he played, he whispered that story in my ear.
And then we whispered it into your ear,
And we carried it together for a long, a long good time
The Big Man was big.
Everything about him.
His personality, his size, his laugh, the sound of his saxophone.
When I first heard it I thought it was the biggest sound I ever heard.
And it was.
His heart, his problems, they were big.
But he was elemental in my life.
And losing him was like losing the rain.
If I were a mystic, if I were a mystic,
I guess Clarence and mine's friendship would lead me to believe that We, we stood together in other older times
Ya know and uh
In other lives,
Along other rivers, in other ancient cities
In other fields, working side by side
With the sun setting,
Doing our modest version of God's work
I'll see you in the next life Big Man
When they made that change uptown
And the Big Man joined the band
From the coastline to the city
All the little pretties raise their hands
I'm gonna sit back right easy and laugh
When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half
With a Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Ladies and gentlemen let's hear it for the biggest man you ever saw
Clarence "Big Man" Clemons
And the legendary
E
Street
Band
That's it
Oh yeah, it's alright
Yeah!
